Ars readers pick the 12 most incredible webcomics

We listed our favorites, then you gave us 120+ of yours.

Last Friday, we nominated our favorite webcomics and asked you to recommend yours. Boy, did Ars readers deliver. Approximately 123 unique recommendations later, we're culling the best and most recommended comics into a handy list for your perusal. There's a lot our original list missed, and because we can't list all 123 recommendations here, we'll inevitably miss a lot more in this follow-up. But here are some overwhelmingly reader-approved webcomics that you'll want to check out (if you haven't done so already.)

Shlock Mercenary

If ever there was an exercise in dedication, it appears to be embodied by the creator of Schlock Mercenary. Cervus got into the comments early to tell us "No Schlock Mercenary? I am disappoint. Hard scifi webcomic, updated without missing a day since June of 2000. Nominated for the Hugo several times (lost to Girl Genius on all of them)." abj21 agreed, saying, "This. Schlock is by far my favorite webcomic. I have been reading it daily for over a decade."

"[N]ot only is it hard scifi with strong story arcs, it manages to bring the funny nearly every day," wrote swilhelm. And reader davolfman gives us the reason behind his respect for the comic: "I think Schlock Mercenary should be on any list. It is probably by far the most professional webcomic out there with an artist who supports a family now and does what it takes to have a daily comic for more than a decade straight without interruption. He didn't start with any talent, just a plan to do it right and has stuck with it while the art improved."

The comic is character-driven, so it will be hard for readers to just pick up at the beginning and go from there. Although, if you don't have the time to digest the 4,600+ entries that Howard Tayler has penned, it's easy enough to get a feel for the characters if you pick up somewhere in the middle.

Questionable Content

Questionable Content from Jeph Jacques "won" in our comments section, garnering 12 mentions from 150+ comments and at least a billion upvotes for those comments that mentioned QC. maeltor offered glowing praise: "+1 for QC!!! Have been reading that near every damn day for a few years now. When I first started, he was a few years in, so I sat and read from start to finish. It's very cool how you can see how his artwork abilities have improved for the years. He's a good Twitter source of funny as well."

"Jeph's done a great job of making a comic and characters that you love following day after day," wrote DrHogie. "I'm a HUGE fan of QC as well. Definitely a winner there too," replied H2O rip. The irreverent and sometimes absurd comic made many of our readers' "Check Every Day" lists, and will appeal to anyone who cares "about romance, indie rock, little robots, and the problems people have," according to the website. If you fit in any of those broad categories, you'll want to check this comic out.

The Adventures of Dr. McNinja

Written and drawn by Christopher Hastings, The Adventures of Dr. McNinja was a crowd favorite for the whimsical and hilarious characters. "I never know what is coming in Dr McNinja," said reflex-croft. "Where's Dr. McNinja?" Caedus asked. "I'm guessing he's here lurking somewhere in the article but we can't see him. Because he's a ninja. And a Doctor."

The comic, which is laid out in a series of "issues" that the reader can select from a drop-down menu, is easier to pick up than other long-running comic with character arcs because of its segmented style. The omission of Dr. McNinja from the original list caused incredulity among readers, with Tamsen saying, "enderandrew and probably others have pointed out that you've missed Dr. McNinja. Criminal, absolutely criminal!"

Achewood

Achewood is another Internet-old comic. Created by Chris Onstad, the comic has been running since 2001. "I mean... I guess that this is a good look at what's out there currently, but a list without Achewood feels entirely incomplete. It was a cornerstone in the founding days of webcomics and, in my opinion, nothing else in the medium has come close to the Great Outdoor Fight arc," wrote jimbles. Editor Patrick Miller at Game Developer Magazine messaged us to vote for Achewood, and also suggested we start at Great Outdoor Fight and read from there.

Achewood isn't for everyone though. enderandrew said he used to be a reader, but no longer. "I read Achewood for a really long time, and it was occasionally brilliant, but often but bizarre and nonsensical. If I don't care for the characters in long-form story, and you're not consistently funny, then I won't keep reading."

Girl Genius

"Questionable Content and Girl Genius are the only story arc comics I can be bothered to follow anymore," wrote skyywise. Indeed, many Ars readers felt that way, as Girl Genius came in a close second to Questionable Content in mentions and in comment upvotes.

"An intricate storyline and I don't know how they can turn out 3 full color pages a week," wrote randomjoe. The well-done art and the sci-fi adventure storyline both got mad props from our commenters. Nekojin gave us the backstory: "A comic by Phil Foglio that originally started as a standard 'dead-tree' comic, and changed into a webcomic when they had some difficulties with publishing the monthly title. Being freed from the constraints of the standard page layout has resulted in some truly fabulous strips (even though most pages still adhere to that format)."

The Perry Bible Fellowship

This webcomic was a favorite among our readers, although it's no longer updated regularly. The Perry Bible Fellowship is usually only three or four panels long, so it's short compared to others we've mentioned, but those few inches of content are heavy on irreverence.

"Though it's been on hiatus for a while, The Perry Bible Fellowship (occasionally NSFW) probably deserves to be mentioned in this context. Though it started in print, it gained much fame as a web comic. Not the best choice for those who are easily offended, but it was consistently clever and very well drawn," wrote mrCharlie

"I also miss the Perry Bible Fellowship," lamented HitScan. But regular updates are not a requirement for making this list, so if sometimes-surreal humor is your style, be sure to check out the archives.

129 Reader Comments

PFFFT. When it comes to comedic webcomics, especially offbeat and weird ones, it's impossible to beat Three Word Phrase: http://www.threewordphrase.com Sadly, he doesn't update it as frequently as he used to

Why can't Ars please link to the source in articles, how hard would it be to make the individual comic headings a link to the comic? Or at least provide a link in the comic description? This seems like sloppy journalism to not provide a simple link to the thing your talking about.

It should be mentioned that CAD just did a reboot (the shown comic is a more or less one-off while Tim Buckley the author works on the main reboot) so while it's a longstanding comic it's, as of a few weeks ago, not the same comic it has been for all those years. Whether that's for better or worse is yet to be seen.

It should be mentioned that CAD just did a reboot (the shown comic is a more or less one-off while Tim Buckley the author works on the main reboot) so while it's a longstanding comic it's, as of a few weeks ago, not the same comic it has been for all those years. Whether that's for better or worse is yet to be seen.

Really?? CAD is only incredible because Tim Buckley is the biggest webcomic hack out there. There are a myriad of problems with the comic, and the reboot has done nothing to fix this problems. In fact, he's gone back to his tried and true format of either having a Mary Sue main character, awful monkey cheese humor, misogyny, gratuitous and unwelcome amounts of violence, a joke that has been well played out by the time he gets to writing a comic about it or any combination of the above.

It should be mentioned that CAD just did a reboot (the shown comic is a more or less one-off while Tim Buckley the author works on the main reboot)

If I'm not mistaken his comics with The Players is the reboot. They're going to be the central characters, along with unrelated comic-specific one-offs. I've been enjoying CAD again for the first time in years now that he's done away with the old characters.___________________

I just cannot get past the atrocious art on Schlock Mercenary. Sluggy Freelance dropped off my radar years ago and if something doesn't happen in the next few months Girl Genius will be joining it. The battle for Mechanicsburg has been going for over a year now.

Questionable Content has taken the top spot in my web-comic list right now. Not sure when that happened.

It should be mentioned that CAD just did a reboot (the shown comic is a more or less one-off while Tim Buckley the author works on the main reboot)

If I'm not mistaken his comics with The Players is the reboot. They're going to be the central characters, along with unrelated comic-specific one-offs. I've been enjoying CAD again for the first time in years now that he's done away with the old characters.

It should be mentioned that CAD just did a reboot (the shown comic is a more or less one-off while Tim Buckley the author works on the main reboot) so while it's a longstanding comic it's, as of a few weeks ago, not the same comic it has been for all those years. Whether that's for better or worse is yet to be seen.

Really?? CAD is only incredible because Tim Buckley is the biggest webcomic hack out there. There are a myriad of problems with the comic, and the reboot has done nothing to fix this problems. In fact, he's gone back to his tried and true format of either having a Mary Sue main character, awful monkey cheese humor, misogyny, gratuitous and unwelcome amounts of violence, a joke that has been well played out by the time he gets to writing a comic about it or any combination of the above.

I purposefully didn't make a value judgement on the comic and whether you think the comic is great or horrible (I've read plenty of opinions on each side) it's really too soon to see how the main story will unfold. In terms of expanding the "Players" and their comic strips, that strikes me as on par with Megatokyo's stick figure days (i.e. an absolutely horrible cop-out) but I'm still holding out that he'll reboot the main storyline with something akin to the midpoint of the old CAD (after they phased out random arrows but pre-wacky megalomaniac penguin storylines).

For me, the best webcomic would have to be Lackadaisy by Tracy J. Butler, set in the Prohibition era about bootlegging, anthropomorphic cats. The artwork blows them all out of the water, and Ms. Butler even strives to make the comic as historically accurate as possible, down to the size of the cheques used in 1929. Only thing is that the tremendous detail and quality of the comic means that updates are highly sporadic, as in about 4-5 pages every few months.

PFFFT. When it comes to comedic webcomics, especially offbeat and weird ones, it's impossible to beat Three Word Phrase: http://www.threewordphrase.com Sadly, he doesn't update it as frequently as he used to

Threewordphrase is awesome... way better than a lot of the web comics Ars featured in this and that previous article. I honestly don't know why they featured most the ones they did. Most were not even remotely funny to me. But, I guess that's fine, everyone has their own taste.

I purposefully didn't make a value judgement on the comic and whether you think the comic is great or horrible (I've read plenty of opinions on each side) it's really too soon to see how the main story will unfold. In terms of expanding the "Players" and their comic strips, that strikes me as on par with Megatokyo's stick figure days (i.e. an absolutely horrible cop-out) but I'm still holding out that he'll reboot the main storyline with something akin to the midpoint of the old CAD (after they phased out random arrows but pre-wacky megalomaniac penguin storylines).

The whole "Players" "storyline" is contrived bullcrap. It creates far more questions than it answers. And there's the whole issue with loss.jpg and killing of Lilah. Tim can't make up his mind if the strip should be stupid "funny" or serious.

If he does reboot the main characters, is he going to white wash those scenes away when dealing with those characters? Is Lilah still going to be a subservient doormat for Ethan? There are a billion other questions that can be used as genuine criticism against the comic and Tim is unwilling to listen to said criticism. (By banning any and all from his forums, leaving a collection of suck-ups and sycophants who think that Tim can do no wrong.)

I have to mention another great webcomic which hasn't been listed (I haven't checked the comments): Sinfest. Updated daily with a color sheet on Sundays. It's been going since 2000 which is pretty damn impressive.

Ctrl+Alt+Del has a rather sour reputation for many. I've stuck with it over the years and I think I didn't miss any updates. Now that the original story is over, I can say it was okay. But the way it flipflopped between (at times quite gory) comedy to "A Very Special Episode"-esqe melodrama put a lot of people off.

I suspect many folks would have liked the ending better if it pulled an "it was all just a dream" cop-out.

Honestly, that CAD gets a nod (and my God above, even some added viewership thanks to this article) and a treasure like Johnny Wander is neglected makes me feel like returning to the champagne bottle from last night to forget what I've just seen.

Yeah, after seeing CAD in this list my opinion on trying out the rest of the list plummeted.

I will mention Gunnerkrigg Court, though. The art style is unique, and the current artwork in incredible (he's improved a lot since the initial comics). It's got a pretty strict storyline - jumping in the middle is not recommended - but unlike many online comics, he consistently updates on time so it never feels like the story is stalled.

No order of the stick? All the other comics I regularly read have been pretty much covered, but I'm surprised considering Ars readership that not more like it. Anybody who's played D&D for hours on time should probably enjoy that one.

Yeah, after seeing CAD in this list my opinion on trying out the rest of the list plummeted.

I will mention Gunnerkrigg Court, though. The art style is unique, and the current artwork in incredible (he's improved a lot since the initial comics). It's got a pretty strict storyline - jumping in the middle is not recommended - but unlike many online comics, he consistently updates on time so it never feels like the story is stalled.

Gunnerkrigg Court was mentioned in the original Ars article where they picked out their twelve favorite webcomics.

I love Questionable Content and Dr. McNinja. Bit surprised they weren't mentioned last time because they're so great.

Recently I came across a new webcomic that's only been going for about a year now, updated once per week. It's all about quotes from historical figures, with an applicable comic drawn around them. Many of the quotes are motivational, and I really enjoy it (even if I don't always follow the advice...)

Probably worth mentioning that Achewood is pretty much finished now... archives are still there, but that's it.

Anyway. Best current comic which is posted on the internet is Simon Hanselmann's Megg and Mogg. http://girlmountain.tumblr.com/ (NSFW). Indeed, this series represents some of the best comics to have surfaced all year.

www.twogag.com/ Two guys and Guy is often morbid but in a fun sort of way, worth checking out...

www.vgcats.com/comics/ has it's moments but has gone down hill lately and is update once every blue moon or so.... Archive is still good..

www.humon.deviantart.com/ She puts out a few fun ones like http://satwcomic.com/ sometimes not entirely work safe... Sometimes you even learn something... not often or for long but still, far from xkcd intelligent "lessons" though...

It should be mentioned that CAD just did a reboot (the shown comic is a more or less one-off while Tim Buckley the author works on the main reboot) so while it's a longstanding comic it's, as of a few weeks ago, not the same comic it has been for all those years. Whether that's for better or worse is yet to be seen.

No amount of rebooting could possibly erase the shame of the CADBortion, or fix the hideous "art" style.

Gabe and Tycho do the same shtick but infinitely better. He should look for some other niche. Or better yet quit drawing.

Did nobody mention The Meek? http://www.meekcomic.com/ (NSFW, especially the first chapter where we get introduced to Angora) The artwork is gorgeous and the story seems to be building quite a rich and complex world around it, even if it can be a bit impenetrable (you definitely have to start from the beginning).

What puzzles me the most is that Ars doesn't even know why it should be on the list, and yet still puts it on the list.

Quote:

Tim Buckley's CTRL+ALT+DEL is a bit of an anomaly on the list in that our readers presented it without much comment as to why it should be there.

If the people who suggested CAD couldn't give good reasons as to why it should be on the list, maybe it shouldn't be on the list? Just a thought.

Yeah, when I was compiling the list I went purely by number of positive or neutral mentions, then by the number of upvotes any comment mentioning that comic got (I didn't take into account any negative votes.) Mentions got higher precedence than upvotes, so in choosing between a comic with 3 mentions, and 2 upvotes versus one with 2 mentions and 6 upvotes, I chose the comic where 3 people cared enough about it to talk about it. CAD is one of those on the list I hadn't read, so a read a few and they seemed ok, maybe not something I would have picked, but I already had my choices in the first article, and this article was about what *Ars readers* chose.

In retrospect, I should have found a way to account for enthusiasm in the mentions of a comment, rather than going by number of mentions. But again, you people suggested over 120 comics, and I had to find a quick way to separate the wheat from the chaff. Judging by the comments, a little chaff got through.

The whole "Players" "storyline" is contrived bullcrap. It creates far more questions than it answers. And there's the whole issue with loss.jpg and killing of Lilah. Tim can't make up his mind if the strip should be stupid "funny" or serious.

I don't think the new "Players" storyline was intended to create (or answer) any questions. The Players have appeared in previous strips before, and they were always more unrealistic and cartoony than Ethan and the other former characters. Their origins and whatnot are unimportant; they're just characters who like video games.Personally I think it's an improvement (or maybe I just like this particular strip because I'm not a fan of Apple products)